E l'duca disse: "I' son un che discendo
con questo vivo giu di balzo in balzo,
e di mostrar lo 'nferno a lui intendo."

And my leader said: "I am one descending with
this living man from ledge to ledge, and I intend to
show him Hell."

— Dante's Inferno, Canto 29

When I leap off the building, I yell like I mean it. Normally I wouldn't bother, but there are youngsters to impress. My heel comes in contact with the lead runner's head, and there's a satisfying crunch as skull gives way to reinforced metal. Effortlessly, I spin into a reverse aerial somersault, and drive meaty fists into the bearded faces of two more Techno Vikings. They start bawling bloody murder, but by now my crew has swung into full effect; there are thin, razor-sharp wires flying through the air like horizontal rain.

Not bad for amateurs, I think. This crop is pretty good.

It's over in a matter of seconds, and nine Vikings lie on the street, in various states of dismemberment. They were wearing black leather armor studded ornamentally with capacitors and resistors, but it had little to no effect against our razor guns, which just worked their way into the kinks - and sliced. Dirty Dan Savage picks up a severed codpiece and says something obscene, and everyone laughs.

I look around, and catch my breath. The team looks pleased. One of my guys is missing a hand, but that's not much of a concern; this was still a pretty good day. Applause echoes off the buildings as the blood fades away.

It's hard to express how completely bored I feel.

High fives are exchanged, with the exception of The Black Blade, who is off in an alley nursing his wound. fortunately, we've got credits to spare; it'll be regenerated.

I guess I don't care much either way.

Mentally, I pull back, looking down at the city from the perspective of a flyer. There are at least 1,000 of us in this city, battling for control of its streets and buildings. We control the sanitation department, the stock exchange, the two newspapers, half the major network hubs, the fruit stands and the coffeeshops. We own the place.

My people own the whole northwest quarter, making us the strongest alliance in the city. We're a force to be reckoned with, and we only fight when we know we'll win. It's only a matter of time before it's all ours. I can hear the accolades already. They will sound like a hurricane, like a monsoon. They will beat upon my skull like waves of tiny silver hammers.

It will be easy to do. The Pit Viper Association has been at war with the Red Tong for months, and we've been providing assistance and encouragement to both sides. In weeks, we can team up with the Laughing Mafia Boys and sweep both of them off the map. The Mafia has three leaders — we can support the weakest faction, incite them to treachery, reveal our influence, and cause their destruction. The two main factions will then lack a counterbalance. Tony Scaliti and Al D'Arctini will fight it out for complete control, and then we'll sweep in, taking no prisoners.

Then it's a simple mop-up job, and we'll own the place.

But right now, I want a cigarette. I ditch my crew, and log out.

I look around my apartment. It's just as it was 6 hours ago: a half-eaten container of chicken chow mein clutters up the tiny coffee table, its noodles turning inexplicably black as it deteriorates from "inedible" to "ambulatory," by way of "hazardous." Dirty promotional T-shirts and grey sweatpants cover the floor in a layer so thick it's impossible to see the soiled remnants of what was once a white shag carpet. My futon is stained and ripped. Outside, the pollution is thick as gruel, and the buildings are stained with fantastic variations on the color of rust. "God bless the terminal," I say, patting my machine on the top of its monitor.

For some reason, I no longer want to smoke. I want to walk.

My rheumy eyes and deteriorating lungs tend to keep me indoors, but a tour through the city seems like something I should do. On days when The Ultimate Game fades into meaningless, and interactive pornography just can't fill the void, I ride the subway.

I drag myself into a sweatsuit and climb into the antiquated elevator that moves from my apartment toward the litter-strewn ground. The thing was built in 2020. It's now 108 years later, and as it descends, it shudders like wax paper blowing in a strong breeze.

With my pocket-knife, I scrape a message into the soft plastic wall: "Buy a new one every 100 years, okay?"

The thing stops. It creaks. One of the doors slides open while the other just vibrates, pathetically, having been jammed for at least a decade.

I slouch out into the lobby, trying not to be seen by squatters who fill its makeshift cots. They turn slowly in their various states of conciousness, subconciousness and unconciousness. Some are wide-awake, and have been for days. Others are shifting between sleep and fitful, time-stretched awareness of the world around them. Others just lie there. At least one of them has seemingly slept for days, but the flies don't seem to be upon him — I assume his wooly form is merely resting up for another binge.

The women are wrapped like mummies in tattered shawls and layers of scarves, and they lie across the couches as though they were divans in a harem. The men look like me, with slightly dirtier and darker sweatsuits. I feel like aristocracy, a bit. I smile to myself as I walk through the lobby, shutting it all down when someone throws a clump of garbage past my head. It hits the wall. Once, it was a potato. I mused to myself: where do potatoes grow? In the game, food is simulated by mealpacks. They're uniform in taste, texture and appearance, and it greatly simplifies the mundane task known as "eating.

I leave the building through its still-functioning automatic doors, which slide open like a castle's gate, confronting me with tangled streets. But walking the silent city calms me down a bit. My mind instinctively returns to The Game, but I fight it down. I'm concerned that while I'm taking this tour, Hasbro and The Mexican might be leading some sort raid on the First National Savings and Loan, one of the fiscal pillars of my regime. I consider this for a moment while I pick a hole in my sweatshirt, and shuffle toward the subway.

I am 80 years old.

I have played the Game for 45 years, now. I was one of the first war chieftains — one of the greats. I had 50 incarnations, and I am internationally feared and respected for the empires I have built.

I sit down on a bench, and a cop averts his eyes, concerned I might try to talk to him.

I think about it. I also think about shoveling myself onto the tracks as the train pulls through the station, but give up after taking a few hesitant steps toward the yellow safety tape. This is perhaps the 20th time I've "tried to kill myself" but even this bit of self-created melodrama fails to spark much of a pulse.

Without knowing my final destination, I shuffle into the train, siting in a pile of newspapers. I read an advertisement. A new chapter of the game is opening up. I let me eyes slide from the page without even starting the synopsis.

I arrive at my destination: New Somerville.

Surprise, surprise. As per usual, my subconscious has made the decisions for me. I have traveled along the decrepit Orange Line for 5 stations, before jumping onto the pristine and well-regulated White Line. Baking under the hostile glare of a blue-vested man of business, I ride the White Line for 6 more stops, emerging at the station closest to my brother's house.

The air seems a little cleaner out here. There are trees lining most of the streets. I feel increasingly self-conscious as I slouch through the suburban woods, but I tell myself there is something I need to say to him.

It's hard not to feel out of place in the suburbs. There are more people on the streets, and they move with ease and grace. They have none of the quiet, introspective posture that I associate with my fellow city-dwellers, the beaten down and gamed-out masses that populate the collapsing apartment buildings like sick, sluggish bees filling hives that are feathering apart with neglect and decay.

The suburban residents are like wasps — clean and healthy, zipping efficiently down the well-maintained pavement, putting one foot in front of the other with what could easily be described as a disturbing amount of enthusiasm.

In better days, long-gone along with my hair and the country's competeing political parties, I found the suburbs to be a trip. In general, Somervillains were (and are) more likely to be writers or producers of the Game, than players. It gave the whole place a sort of vibrant hum, as its citizens strolled the streets with their electronic communications paraphenilia and distracted smirks, sometimes walking in pairs, comparing their wristwatches and chatting about erudite bits of literature or computer code.

I scared them. I made them uneasy. I had a distinctive inner city sheen, but the attitude of a champion player. I'm sure that more than a few would have envied me if they could have seen my chains of glittering kingdoms.

They built them. I won them.

But now, a hundred conquests later, they make me scared. There are few things so ennervating to an old man as to see the next couple of generations, striding around enjoying the seemingly endless promise of life. A young couple approaches. The woman is quiet. She wears glasses, as a fashion accessory, as a declaration that she reads books and wallows in history. She's probably a writer, and she totes a heavy tome as her passport. Her male friend is dressed in business casual - he sports a loud red tie, a loud red button-down shirt, neat slacks and a black briefcase with the logo of The Game Company tastefully stamped into it with silver ink. He talks like in a clattering string of superlatives, grating against the air. They advance like a freight train, and nearly scare me into the gutter.

When you're young, the passing of generations is amusing, and it's comforting to know, two steps down the line, the world is ridding itself of its waste.

At the end of the line, however, there are two conflicting and bitter urges: the urge to jump, and the urge to hang on until the bitter end.

Eventually, I make my way to my brother's reasonably sized but tasteful abode. It's not an apartment. It's a house. I've marvelled at this along as he's lived here. But when I arrive at the door, I forget what I've come all this way to say. The folder that holds the information is closed to me. I can feel the words catching in my throat as I ring his bell. He opens the door, and smiles at me. I come on.

Alexander's house is lined with books, and I can hear the tea kettle whistling as I settle into my favorite chair.

"I'll be back in a moment!" he exclaims. "Tea's on. Would you like the usual?"

"Yes, please," I say. He returns a few moments later with real black tea, served in real porcelain cups. It is good.

For a while, we sip tea, and I let myself look at his books. It's strange to think that people once read crushed chemicals spread across paper for fun. It's strange to think that someone would want to do something other than play the Game. The titles intrigue, me, though. What do they mean? Are they all game scenarios, from some glorious golden age? Are they the rusted-out remnants of a world now dead? Their spines are exotic, stacked up and facing me like a graveyard. Every stone a story. Every spine, a mystery. "All the King's Men." "White Teeth." "From Here to Eternity." "Candide."

"The Divine Comedy," he says to me. "Have you read it?"

He knows I haven't, but tries to be polite, nonetheless. Who has time for this? "No, I haven't. Why do you mention it?"

"It was written many years ago, and it has three books, each an epic poem of staggering imagination. However, I think we'll probably just stick to the Inferno. It's going to be the basis for the next chapter of the game. I think you'll like it." He smiles, and then curls his thin, lightly mustachioed lips around the edge of his cup. He slurps hot tea. His necktie is impeccable, his grooming ornate, his demeanor comfortable and refined. I quiver a bit when I think about the differences between the two of us.

"Oh really?" I ask. My voice is dead.

"Yes. It has nine levels. It's a natural. Can you imagine the potential for effects, for sub-plots, for subtle landscaping? We've always aped God when we've built these damn things, but this time we'll be aping what God creates when he creates art. This could be really good."

His enthusiasm is more disturbing then winning, I think. I can't remember exactly what it was like to get that exacted. Even the prospect of a new scenario - a new scenario which I will hear about before the world - leaves me compartively cold. I am not knocked over by this. I want to be knocked over by this, but my brother's gleaming eyes somehow fail to do the trick. He doesn't catch on, however; he chatters on like a skull.

"Players at more advanced levels will, naturally, become Powers in the lower realms. People will jockey for rank and position. There will be a delightful demonic theme to the whole thing, as people ride the windstorms, or walk the frozen plains of Cocytus. The winner, of course, will ascend to the position of Satan."

I look at him, glazing over. I imagine myself walking the frozen plains of Cocytus. I imagine an army of demons at my back. I imagine myself rising up, stretching toward the infernal dome of Hell, arching my back as declare myself the undisputed overlord of the land.

"You will play, of course?" He doesn't ask, he commands. He always likes me to run through the first incarnations of his games. If I can't at least make a strong showing, there is too much random chance, and the program needs to allow for more player control and talent. If I win easily, it needs tweaking, to make for a more balanced and engaging contest.

In my head, I am walking toward hell already. In the living room of my brother, I am thanking him for the tea, shaking his hand, and walking toward the subway.

Back to the subway station. The white marble hems me in. A bearded man stares at me, making me wonder if I've met him before — perhaps gameside.

My head spins as a train starts to enter the station. Suddenly, wonderfully, amazingly, my muscles respond like puppets on strings, and I soar toward the tracks, making a perfect arc in the air.

For a moment, I'm a superhero.

Originally published in Gentleman Magazine in April, 2001.